CBA Record July-August 2025

which are based on decades of case law and the EEOC’s guidance to employers on how to follow the PWFA and gives readers a clear understanding of what the PWFA requires and prohibits. The article also notes where the PWFA differs from the ADA and Title VII— namely, an employee cannot be deemed “unqualified” for a position solely because they are pregnant, and there is no religious exemption in the statute as in Title VII. Finally, the article considers the PWFA in the context of Dobbs , which has made navigating the workplace while preg nant significantly more difficult for low income women. The PWFA requires reasonable accommodations for employ ees experiencing a “pregnancy related con dition,” which the statute explicitly states includes abortion. The author posits that the PWFA may aid low-income women by protecting their jobs while they seek reproductive healthcare.

REVIEW OF REVIEWS

REVIEWS, REVIEWS, REVIEWS!

The Federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act: Statutory Requirments, Regulations, and Need (Especially in Post-Dobbs America) By Deborah Widiss, 27 Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal 84 (2024) Review by Bridget Maston, 3L at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law

Congress enacted the Federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) in Decem ber 2022 as a successor to the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. The PWFA is based around one core tenet: employers must provide reasonable accommodations for employees with known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medi cal conditions, unless doing so would pres

ent an undue hardship to the employer. Although the PWFA is relatively new legislation, author Deborah Widiss notes that many terms central to the Act are taken from the Americans with Disabili ties Act, and the remedies and parties covered by the Act are taken directly from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The article explains these borrowed terms,

“Legally Magic”Words: An Empirical Study of the Accessibility of Fifth Amendment Rights By Roseanna Sommers & Kate Weisburd, 119 Nw. U. L. Rev. 637 (2024) Reviewed by Thomas Burnett, 3L at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law

How does a person invoke their Fifth Amendment rights? This question may seem simple, but for nonlawyers, this issue presents a significant hurdle to exercising their constitutional rights and to defend ing their innocence. Extensive research has shown that most people do not know their constitutional rights. And while stan dard Miranda warnings attempt to inform people of their rights to remain silent and to an attorney, they do not explain how one can invoke these rights. This article aims to reconcile the public’s understand

ing of constitutional rights with prevailing Fifth Amendment jurisprudence. The authors used a survey of 1,718 people in the United States to assess how the American public’s understanding of constitutional rights differs from the pre vailing legal standard. Drawing from case law, the authors provided survey respon dents with actual scenarios to determine whether they (1) understood the consti tutional rights involved, and (2) could correctly identify whether the defendant successfully invoked the right in question.

By comparing survey results to the pre vailing legal standard, the authors explain that the public’s understanding of the “legally magic words” needed to invoke the right to remain to silent and the right to an attorney is more expansive than that established by the jurisprudence—indeed, members of the public often perceive legally “ambiguous” statements as success ful invocation. The article highlights how the public’s perception of fundamental rights differs from jurists’.

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Complete the 6 hours of Professional Responsibility credit, including the Diversity/Inclusion and Mental Health/ Substance Abuse credits, that are required to satisfy your Illinois continuing legal education requirements. Topics include: The Ethics of Negotiation,Lawyering With Emotional Intelligence, and The Ethics of Generative A.I. See details at Learn.ChicagoBar.org.

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